THE  INDIAN  AS  A  DIPLOMATIC  FACTOR 

IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  OLD 

NORTHWEST 


A  PAPER    READ    BEFORE 


THE    CHICAGO    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY 

MARCH  28,  1907 


ISAAC 


COX 


ASSISTANT    PRO 


PUBLISHED    BY    THE    SOCIETY 
1910 


THE  INDIAN  AS  A  DIPLOMATIC  FACTOR 

IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  OLD 

NORTHWEST 


A    PAPER    READ    BEFORE 


THE    CHICAGO    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY 

MARCH   28,   1907 


ISAAC    JOSLIN     COX 


ASSISTANT 


BY    THE    SOOETY 
191O 


, 


THE  INDIAN  AS  A  DIPLOMATIC  FACTOR  IN  THE 
HISTORY  OF  THE  OLD  NORTHWEST. 

One  merely  asserts  a  truism  when  he  states  that  the 
North  American  Indian  is  the  predominant  factor  in  the 
early  history  of  the  Northwest;  and  that  in  no  other  field 
is  this  more  apparent  than  in  its  diplomacy.  It  is  true 
that  one  may  well  hesitate  to  apply  such  a  dignified  title 
to  a  policy  often  characterized  by  senseless  deceit, 
audacious  theft,  and  other  accompaniments  of  mere  low 
intrigue;  or  to  a  policy  which  if  free  from  these  blemishes 
was  still  powerless  to  assure  essential  justice  to  the  con 
tracting  parties;  yet  the  fact  remains  that  in  formal  cere 
mony,  in  the  extent  of  territory  involved,  and  in  subse 
quent  results  many  of  the  treaties  with  the  aborigines 
of  this  section  rank  in  importance  with  the  significant 
results  of  European  diplomacy. 

In  this  Northwestern  diplomacy  we  may  readily  group 
the  important  events  into  three  distinctive  periods.  The 
first  is  distinguished  as  the  period  of  international  com 
plications  between  England  and  France,  with  Spain  as 
a  minor  and  largely  negligible  factor.  The  second  period 
may  be  described  as  a  domestic  interlude  between  two 
international  movements,  during  which  the  interests  of 
the  British  Imperial  Government  and  its  red  wards  are 
involved  with  those  of  its  colonies,  of  private  traders  and 
of  would-be  colonizing  companies.  Later  in  this  same 
period  these  latter  interests  play  an  important  part  in 
the  domestic  affairs  of  the  newly  liberated  states  and  of 
their  embryo  national  government.  The  creation  by  the 
latter  of  a  well  defined  area — the  "Territory  Northwest 
of  the  Ohio  River" — closes  the  second  period  and  ushers 
in  the  third,  which  is  characterized  by  the  struggle  be- 

209 

333392 


tween  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  for  the  pos 
session  of  the  above  territory.  It  is  this  period  that  con 
stitutes  the  important  era  of  Northwestern  diplomacy 
and  comprises  the  major  portion  of  this  paper. 

The  above  division  is  adopted  for  the  sake  of  con 
venience  in  grouping  facts  and  in  no  sense  implies  that 
the  tendencies  or  movements  of  one  period  do  not  reap 
pear  in  a  later  one,  but  that  their  presence  and  influence 
give  greater  emphasis  to  a  certain  epoch.  For  instance, 
the  first  period  may  be  said  to  end  with  1763,  but  French 
diplomacy  and  intrigue  continue  as  important  secondary 
factors  in  the  history  of  the  Northwest  as  well  as  of  the 
whole  Mississippi  valley,  for  the  following  half  century.1 
On  the  other  hand  domestic  questions  ever  play  an  im 
portant  part,  even  when  international  complications 
seem  to  control  the  situation,  as  is  shown  by  the  effect 
in  1814  of  Harrison's  Indian  treaties  upon  the  negotia 
tions  about  to  commence  at  Ghent.2  Yet  while  no  one 
set  of  influences  is  in  absolute  control  at  any  one  stage 
of  our  discussion,  convenience  will  lead  to  the  adoption 
of  the  above  mentioned  divisions. 

Let  us  proceed  to  a  brief  consideration  of  the  first  of 
these  periods,  the  struggle  between  France  and  England 
for  the  mastery  of  the  American  continent.  For  the 
present  other  European  nations  may  be  disregarded. 
Spain,  long  since  content  with  Florida  and  her  Mexican 
vice-royalty,  is  too  remote  from  the  future  Northwest 
Territory  to  be  vitally  interested  in  its  disposal.  The 
English  have  absorbed  the  claims  of  the  Dutch  along 
the  Atlantic  coast  and  are  beginning  to  turn  their  atten 
tion  to  the  immediate  interior,  where  French  influences 

1  For  the  best  survey  of  the  attitude  of  France  towards  the 
United  States  in  genera)  and  the  Mississippi  valley  in  particular, 
see  the  articles  by  Prof.   F.  J.  Turner  in  the  American  Historical 
Review,  Vols.  III.  and  X.,  and  the  collections  of  documents  in  Ibid. 
II.  and  III.,  and  in  the  Reports  of  the  American  Historical  Associa 
tion  for  1897  and  1903. 

2  Cf.  John  Quincy  Adams,  Memoirs,  Vol.  III.,  p.  43. 

210 


are  already  present.  Between  their  outposts  on  the 
Hudson  and  those  of  the  French  in  the  valley  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  lay  the  ever-present  Indian  factor — this  time 
personified  in  the  various  Iroquois  tribes.  This  power 
ful  confederacy  not  only  occupied  the  territory  between 
the  two  European  rivals,  but  themselves  exercised  a  sort 
of  indefinite  suzerainty  over  other  Indians  as  far  west  as 
the  Mississippi.  This  rendered  the  aid  of  these  confed 
erated  tribes  doubly  important  to  the  nation  that  desired 
to  control  the  interior.  How  to  secure  this  aid  was  the 
problem  that  for  nearly  a  century  occupied  the  attention 
of  the  more  intelligent  and  far-seeing  of  the  British 
officials  upon  this  continent,  and  how  to  neutralize  their 
efforts  the  perennial  task  of  their  French  rivals. 

The  hostile  course  of  Champlain  had  aroused  among 
the  Iroquois  an  antipathy  to  the  French  which  his  suc 
cessors  vainly  sought  to  remove.  This  antipathy  was 
reinforced  by  the  greater  material  resources  of  the  Eng 
lish  colonists  for  carrying  on  the  fur  trade,  and  this  in 
turn  early  gave  a  mercenary  bias  to  the  struggle  for  the 
control  of  the  Northwest — a  characteristic  that  it  re 
tained  to  the  end.  By  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury,  however,  the  Iroquois  began  to  profess  a  desire  to 
remain  neutral  in  the  conflict.  If  this  was  their  sincere 
wish,  they  were  destined  to  be  disappointed.  From  the 
days  of  Governor  Dongan,  who  by  his  attractive  manner 
secured  tokens  of  fealty  to  his  master,  James,  Duke  of 
York,  to  the  treaty  of  Lancaster,  in  1744,  we  have  a 
series  of  documents  showing  the  increasing  influence  of 
the  English  over  the  Iroquois.  It  is  true  that  many  of 
the  documents  are  of  doubtful  origin  or  of  hypothetical 
value,  but  whatever  their  character,  they  show  that 
England  was  slowly  gaining  over  France,  in  her  race  for 
territory  in  the  Northwest. 

The  rival  claims  of  the  two  nations  were  first  given 
a  definite  diplomatic  standing  in  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht 

211 


in  1713.  This  treaty  provided  for  a  delimitation  of  the 
claims  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  and  the  French 
Colony  of  Canada,  and  thus  indirectly  had  some  bearing 
upon  the  extreme  northwestern  limit  of  this  territory. 
Of  more  immediate  importance,  however,  was  the  ac 
knowledgment  that  the  Iroquois  were  subject  to  Eng 
lish  rather  than  French  control.  The  Indians  were  not 
consulted  in  the  treaty,  and  the  French  later  refused  to 
acknowledge  the  full  pretentious  which  the  English 
claimed  by  virtue  of  it,  but,  nevertheless,  it  constitutes  a 
land  mark  in  American  diplomacy  and  especially  in  that 
of  the  Northwest. 

In  keeping  with  the  above  treaty,  the  English  author 
ities  later  produced  a  series  of  documents,  purporting  to 
be  deeds  to  territory  lying  on  the  northern  and  southern 
shores  of  Lake  Erie  and  Lake  Ontario.  These  deeds  are 
of  more  than  doubtful  validity — at  least  they  may  be  at 
tacked  by  documents  of  similar  character,  expressing 
Iroquois  allegiance  to  the  French  King.1  There  is,  how 
ever,  no  question  regarding  the  fact  of  the  most  impor 
tant  of  the  cessions  of  this  character — that  of  the  Treaty 
of  Lancaster.2  In  1744  ,  under  the  influence  of  English, 
the  Iroquois  chiefs  acknowledged  the  validity  of  the 
western  claims  of  Virginia,  based  on  her  colonial  char 
ters,  and  thus  gave  substance,  if  not  form,  to  the  English 
claim  to  the  Ohio  valley.  Virginia  must  still  make  good 
her  claim  against  her  sister  colonies,  and  Great  Britain 
must  assert  their  united  claim  against  encroaching 
French  pretentious.  The  latter  phase  of  the  question 
was  decided  by  the  Seven  Years'  War;  the  former  re 
mained  a  disturbing  domestic  factor,  until  it  was  settled 
by  a  definite  renunciation  of  state  claims  and  the  crea 
tion  of  the  Northwest  Territory. 


1They  are  given  for  the  most  part  in  Documents  Relating  to  the 
Colonial  History  of  New  York,  Vols.  V.  and  IX..  passim. 

2C/.  Pennsylvania  Colonial  Records,  IV.,  693-937. 

212 


The  struggle  between  England  and  France  for  the 
control  of  this  territory  became  critical  when  each 
reached  out  to  possess  the  key  to  the  Ohio  valley — the 
junction  of  the  Allegheny  and  Monongahela  rivers.  For 
a  period  of  eight  decades,  from  Marquette  and  Joliet 
to  Celeron  de  Bienville,  French  occupation  had  advanced 
by  a  series  of  slow  strides  from  the  West  until  all  the 
available  portages  but  one,  between  the  Great  Lakes  and 
the  Mississippi,  were  in  their  possession.  During  the 
same  time  the  tide  of  English  settlement  was  ap 
proaching  the  crest  of  the  Alleghanies  and  threatening 
to  advance  beyond.  Already  English  traders  had  at 
tempted  to  penetrate  to  the  far  Northwest  and  had  been 
checked  by  the  French  establishments  on  the  Wabash 
and  at  Detroit.  Now  a  new  movement  begins  in  which  fur 
trader  and  surveyor  push  forward  to  extend  the  interests 
respectively  of  Pennsylvania  and  of  Virginia  among  the 
Ohio  Indians,  and  to  inaugurate  an  Anglo-American  pol 
icy  in  the  Northwest.  Once  in  contact  with  the  Eng 
lish  pioneer,  the  days  of  the  Canadian  vovageur  are 
numbered  and  his  uncertain  hold  upon  the  great  interior 
valley  quickly  loosened.  Even  the  sturdy  resistance  of 
his  Indian  ally  was  unavailing  to  prolong  his  dominion. 

The  Treaty  of  Paris,  of  February  10th,  1763,  closed 
the  first  period  of  Northwestern  diplomacy  and  ushered 
in  the  second — a  quarter  century  primarily  of  domestic 
policy,  yet  profoundly  influenced  by  international  com 
plications  which  involved  the  shifting  of  continental 
control  and  the  birth  of  a  new  nation  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  The  treaty  itself  first  brought  into  being  what 
was  destined  to  be  the  future  western  limit  of  the  North 
west  Territory,  for  it  made  the  Mississippi  a  boundary 
between  the  possessions  of  Spain  and  of  Great  Britain 
upon  the  American  continent. 

The  colonial  policy  of  the  British  Government  dur 
ing  the  years  following  the  Treaty  of  Paris  tended  to 

213 


emphasize  other  limits  of  the  future  Northwest  Territory. 
As  a  first  step  in  this  policy  we  may  mention  the  Royal 
Proclamation  of  October  7th,  1763.  Although  the  line 
limiting  the  original  colonies  as  established  by  this  proc 
lamation,  lay  some  distance  to  the  eastward  of  any  part 
of  its  future  area,  yet  the  emphasis  placed  by  it  upon 
Indian  relations  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  later 
British  policy  in  this  same  Northwest.  This  proclama 
tion  paved  the  way  for  the  subsequent  Indian  treaties  at 
Ft.  Stanwix  (1768)  and  Lochabor  (1770),  by  which  the 
northern  and  southern  Indians  agreed  to  a  fairly  definite 
line  of  demarcation  between  the  white  settlements  and 
the  lands  reserved  for  their  own  use.  A  portion  of  this 
line  from  above  Ft.  Pitt  to  the  mouth  of  the  Kanawha 
river  was  recognized  by  both  treaties,  while  that  of  Ft. 
Stanwix  prolonged  it  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tennessee. 
Thus,  what  was  afterward  to  be  the  south-eastern  limit 
of  the  Northwest  Territory,  received  its  first  definition. 
The  policy  both  of  the  proclamation  and  of  the  treaties 
was  one  designed  to  protect  the  rapidly  advancing  fron 
tier  by  winning  the  confidence  of  the  Indians  and  assur 
ing  the  latter  of  the  essential  justice  of  the  British 
government.1 

That  this  policy  did  not  involve  a  repression  of 
white  settlement  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  British 
authorities  almost  immediately  began  to  entertain  pro 
posals  looking  to  an  occupation  of  their  western  territory, 
and  particularly  of  that  portion  between  the  mountains 
and  the  Ohio  recently  ceded  by  the  Indians.  The  most 
noteworthy  of  these  proposed  new  colonies  was  that  of 
Vandalia,  in  which  Benjamin  Franklin  was  interested. 
The  northern  boundary  of  this  embryo  government  was 
to  be  the  Ohio  from  the  western  boundary  of  Pennsyl 
vania  to  a  point  opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Scioto.  Thus 


JFarrand,  The  Indian  Boundary  Line,  in  American  Historical 
Review,  Vol.  X.,  p.  782  ff. 

214 


the  proposed  cession  emphasized  the  former  river  as  the 
line  of  separation  between  the  white  man  and  the  red. 
A  later  land  scheme,  the  Transylvania  Company,  like 
wise  proposed  the  Ohio  river,  from  the  Kentucky  to  the 
Cumberland,  as  its  northern  limit.  The  outbreak  of  the 
Revolution  alone  prevented  the  realization  of  these 
schemes  and  an  early  delimitation  of  the  territory  south 
of  the  Ohio.1 

Another  movement  on  the  part  of  the  British  gov 
ernment  shows  an  approach  to  the  same  territory  from 
the  opposite  direction,  and  apparently  from  a  different 
motive.  In  reality,  however,  the  purpose  of  the  Quebec 
Act  of  1774  does  not  differ  from  that  of  the  Proclamation 
of  1763,  and  the  ensuing  Indian  treaties,  although  the 
strife  of  the  Revolutionary  period  gave  it  another  inter 
pretation.  An  examination  of  the  subject  shows  that 
the  British  government  was  simply  continuing  the  policy 
of  protecting  its  native  wards  and  of  regulating  trade 
with  them.  For  this  and  other  administrative  purposes 
it  was  more  convenient  to  attach  the  territory  east  of  the 
Mississippi  and  north  of  the  Ohio  to  Quebec  than  to  any 
other  settled  government,  and  it  was  so  done  in  the 
above  act.2 

By  these  various  proclamations,  treaties,  and  enact 
ments,  the  British  government  emphasized  the  Ohio  as 
the  line  of  separation  between  civilization  and  savagery, 
although  we  must  not  define  our  terms  too  closely  on 
either  side  of  the  line.  To  the  possible  objection  that 
these  transactions  do  not  constitute  diplomacy  in  its 
truest  sense,  we  may  confidently  affirm  that  the  various 
methods  by  which  rival  land  companies  played  their 
parts  against  each  other  and  the  Indian,  both  in  England 
and  America,  certainly  come  under  the  definition  of  in- 


1  Alden,  New  Governments  Westofthe  Alleghanies,  pp.  20-28,  57. 
2 Coffin,  The  Province  of  Quebec  and  the  Early  American  Revo 
lution,  p.  39.  ff. 

215 


trigue,  if  not  that  of  the  more  honorable  term,   and  con 
form  to  the  statement  of  our  opening  paragraph. 

With  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  the  scene  of 
interest  for  the  above  plans  is  shifted  to  the  Thirteen 
colonies  that  have  now  become  independent  states. 
With  the  revival  of  their  claims  to  the  western  lands, 
the  operations  of  intriguing  land  companies  are  trans 
ferred  to  the  state  legislatures  or  to  the  Continental 
Congress,  where  they  play  a  minor  part  in  the  discussions 
between  the  States'  Rights  and  National  parties.  The 
interests  of  the  various  states  are,  however,  so  conflict 
ing  as  to  lead  to  a  mutual  renunciation  of  claims,  begin 
ning  with  New  York  in  1780  and  closing  with  Virginia  in 
1784,  by  which  the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio  is 
finally  organized  under  the  famous  ordinance  of  1787. 
Upon  this  new  national  basis  there  is  the  opportunity 
for  questions  relating  to  the  Northwest  again  to  assume 
international  importance,  and  we  enter  upon  the  third 
and  most  important  period  into  which  our  subject  is 
divided. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  details  of  this  third  period, 
it  may  be  well  to  consider  what  the  first  two  periods  have 
definitely  contributed  to  our  subject.  International 
treaty  and  Indian  negotiation,  aided  by  a  colonial  land 
policy,  have  definitely  marked  out  two  boundaries  of  the 
future  Northwest  Territory — the  Mississippi  on  the  west 
and  the  Ohio  on  the  southeast.  In  addition  British  pro 
cedure  has  emphasized  the  fact  that  this  region  is  to 
remain  an  Indian  territory,  and  British  officials  are  un 
able  to  appreciate  a  different  policy  even  thirty  years 
after  it  has  nominally  passed  out  of  their  control.  This 
is  the  significant  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Northwest 
from  this  time  until  after  the  the  war  of  1812. 

The  first  important  contribution  to  the  third  period 
of  Indian  diplomacy  in  the  Northwest  is  a  memoir  con 
nected  with  the  name  of  Vergennes,  the  Minister  of 

216 


State  of  Louis  XVI.  of  France.  This  memoir  was  un 
doubtedly  composed  before  the  American  alliance  in  1778 
and  considered  the  probable  action  of  France  in  case  the 
United  States  should  win  its  independence.  He  favored 
the  restriction  of  the  new  states  to  the  territory  west  of 
the  Alleghanies;  France  should  enter  into  the  contest 
and  force  from  Great  Britain  the  cession  of  the  western 
part  of  Canada,  which  united  to  Louisiana  was  to  form 
a  new  colonial  empire  for  the  French  monarchy.  It  is 
interesting  to  add  that  he  proposes  to  make  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  region  between  the  Ohio,  the  Missis 
sippi  and  the  Lakes  an  Indian  reserve  and  thus  to  con 
tinue  the  policy  of  Great  Britain  as  well  as  revert  to  the 
original  French  system. l 

The  danger  from  this  proposal,  whether  rightly  at 
tributed  to  Vergennes  or  not,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
since  1763  England  had  feared  the  presence  of  French 
and  Spanish  emissaries  in  this  region,  and  that  this  fear 
became  pronounced  during  the  early  years  of  the  Revo 
lution.2  Not  only  the  Northwest,  but  Canada,  was 
threatened  by  these  rovers  among  the  discontented  Indi 
ans;  while  to  add  to  this  fear,  after  the  outbreak  of  hos 
tilities  with  Spain  in  1779,  came  the  capture  of  the 
lower  Mississippi  by  Galvez  and  the  Spanish  expedition 
from  St  Louis  to  Ft.  St  Josephs  on  Lake  Michigan  in 
the  winter  of  1780-81,  Spain  was  becoming  more  than 
interested  spectator  of  the  disposal  of  the  territory  be 
tween  the  Mississippi  and  the  Great  Lakes,  and  France 
more  than  a  willing  ally  to  serve  her  purpose. 

Whether  Vergennes  was  or  was  not  the  author  of  the 
above  memoir  it  certainly  is  completely  in  accord  with 
the  purpose  later  revealed  by  his  secretary,  Rayneval, 

1  Cf.  Turner,  in  the  Am.  Hist.  Rev.  X.,  250-252.  A  copy  of  this 
memoir  is  in  the  King  Collection  of  the  Historical  and  Philosophi 
cal  Society  of  Ohio. 

2Brymner,  Report  of  the  Canadian  Archives  for  1800,  p.  91  ff : 
Ibid,  for  1887,  p.  205  ff. 

217 


to  restrict  the  western  pretentions  of  the  Americans,  in 
order  to  favor  Spain.  While  in  Paris  in  1782,  during  the 
preliminary  negotiations  with  Great  Britain,  John  Jay 
held  some  interviews  with  d'Aranda,  the  Spanish  min 
ister  at  the  French  court,  in  the  course  of  which  the  lat 
ter  had  told  him  that  the  Spanish  government  expected 
the  United  States  to  be  satisfied  with  a  boundary  line 
running  from  western  Georgia  to  the  Ohio  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Kanawha,  thence  around  the  western  shores  of  Lake 
Erie  and  Lake  Huron,  enclosing  Michigan,  to  the  end 
of  Lake  Superior.  The  Spanish  minister  seemed  sur 
prised  that  Jay  insisted  upon  the  Mississippi  as  the 
boundary,  and  dwelt  upon  the  fact  that  the  western 
country  belonged  to  the  Indians.  In  furtherance  of  the 
Spaniard's  policy  Rayneval,  Vergennes'  secretary,  later 
addressed  to  Jay  a  memoir  in  which  he  tried  to  show  that 
it  was  the  policy  of  the  British  government  from  1755 
to  1763  not  to  consider  the  territory  beyond  the  moun 
tains  as  belonging  to  the  original  colonies.  Accordingly 
he  proposed  that  the  territory  south  of  the  Ohio  should 
remain  an  Indian  reservation  under  the  joint  protection 
of  Spain  and  the  United  States;  that  the  latter  should 
give  up  its  demand  for  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  that  the  status  of  the  territory  north  of  the  Ohio 
should  be  determined  by  negotiations  with  the  court  of 
London.  According  to  his  proposal  the  powers  of 
Europe  were  to  share  the  feast  and  America  to  have  the 
leavings. 

The  submission  of  this  memoir  and  the  later  secret 
visits  of  Rayneval  to  London  convinced  Jay  that  he  and 
his  fellow  commissioners  had  nothing  to  hope  for  from 
the  Court  of  France.  Recent  discussion  of  the  conditions 
surrounding  the  making  of  this  treaty  seem  to  show  that 
Jay  and  likewise  John  Adams,  were  probably  too  suspi 
cious  of  Vergennes  and  Rayneval,  and  that  the  French 
minister  was  probably  acting  for  the  best  interests  of  his 

218 


own  country  in  supporting  the  claims  of  Spain  and  in 
endeavoring  to  bring  hostilities  to  a  speedy  close.1 

When  the  United  States  commissioners  had  once 
taken  matters  in  their  own  hands  the  event  presaged  a 
treaty  in  which  their  interests  were  not  to  suffer,  to 
say  the  least.  The  spirit  of  conciliation  which  dictated 
the  policy  of  the  British  commissioners  at  Paris  finally 
resulted  in  a  northern  and  western  limit  which  embraced 
all  territory  that  the  United  States  could  naturally  ex 
pect  to  acquire.  By  their  instructions  the  American 
representatives  had  been  directed  to  obtain  a  line  run 
ning  from  the  point  where  the  45th  parallel  crossed  the 
St.  Lawrence,  directly  west  to  Lake  Nipissing  and  thence 
to  the  Mississippi.2  Such  a  line  disregarded  natural 
features,  and  when  the  British  commissioners  proposed 
as  an  alternative  the  present  line  following  the  middle 
course  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  finally  terminating  in  the 
Lake  of  the  Woods,  the  American  commissioners  readily 
accepted  the  change. 3  In  all  probability  the  former  line 
would  have  been  of  more  immediate  advantage,  had  the 
Americans  been  prepared  to  assume  military  possession 
of  the  entire  area,  for  it  would  have  meant  the  absolute 
control  of  the  two  lower  lakes,  together  with  the  greater 
part  of  Huron  and  of  Michigan,  and  thus  it  would  have  in 
sured  the  immediate  enjoyment  of  the  fur  trade.  In  the 
long  run,  however,  the  resources  of  the  upper  portion  of 
Michigan  and  of  Wisconsin  have  established  the  wisdom 
of  the  Americans  in  accepting  as  they  did  the  present 
northern  boundary  of  our  section. 

Apparently  the  Northwest  with   its  natural  bound- 


irThe  best  summary  of  the  attitude  of  France  toward  America 
in  1782-83  is  to  be  found  in  McLaughlin's  The  Confederation  and 
the  Constitution  (Am.  Nation  Series,  X.}  where  the  authorities  are 
mentioned  with  a  critical  estimate  of  their  value. 

2  Secret  Journals  of  Congress,  Foreign  Affairs,  Aug.  14,  1779. 

3\Vharton,  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  American  Revo 
lution,  V.,  851-853. 

219 


aries — the  Mississippi,  the  Ohio,  and  the  Great  Lakes, 
was  finally  delimited,  and  this  area,  destined  to  be  one 
of  the  richest  and  most  populous  sections  of  our  Union, 
awaited  only  the  ordinance  of  four  years  later  to  begin 
its  definite  progress  in  civilization.  In  reality,  however, 
the  limited  geographical  knowledge  of  the  time  had  led 
to  a  minor  omission  in  the  limits  which  was  later  to 
trouble  both  contracting  parties  out  of  all  proportion  to 
its  importance.  By  the  terms  of  the  treaty  the  northern 
limit  of  the  United  States  was  to  continue  due  west  from 
the  Lake  of  the  Woods  until  it  reached  the  Mississippi. 
As  this  river  did  not  extend  so  far  north  as  the  lake,  the 
boundary  was  an  impossibility,  so  a  gap  was  left  in  the 
extreme  northwestern  limit  of  the  new  nation  and  like 
wise  of  the  section  shortly  to  become  the  Northwest 
Territory.  To  remedy  this  mistake  would  have  seemed 
a  matter  of  little  difficulty,  but  later  negotiations  com 
plicated  this  minor  omission  with  the  far  more  important 
issues  of  the  Indian  trade,  the  right  to  navigate  the 
Mississippi  and  subsequently  the  settlement  of  the  north 
ern  boundary  of  the  Louisiana  purchase,  and  thus  post 
poned  for  thirty-five  years  the  moment  for  a  final  diplo 
matic  settlement  of  the  limits  of  the  Northwest  Territory. 

In  the  years  following  1783  the  Northwest  became 
not  only  internationally  important,  but  Indian  relations 
monopolized  almost  every  point  from  which  its  affairs 
were  viewed.  It  is  true  that  other  questions  contributed 
to  the  diplomacy  and  intrigue  of  the  period  and  a  brief 
resume  of  these  will  show  the  possible  interest  for  our 
subject. 

In  the  year  1788  occurred  the  celebrated  Spanish 
conspiracy  which  embraced  several  of  the  prominent 
men  of  Kentucky.  The  controlling  motive  for  this 
incident  was  the  desire  of  the  Spanish  authorities  in 
Louisiana  to  check  the  increasing  tide  of  American  mi 
gration  over  the  mountains.  The  Canadian  authorities 

220 


were  also  alive  to  the  danger  from  this  westward  move 
ment  and  embarked  in  a  counter  attempt  to  forestall 
their  Spanish  rivals  by  sending  a  half-pay  officer  to  ob 
serve  this  migration.  This  officer,  Conolly,  reported 
that  some  of  the  new  colonists  settling  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Muskingum  were  inclined  to  favor  opening  a  clandes 
tine  trade  with  the  British  at  Detroit,  and  even  men 
tioned  the  name  of  General  Parsons  of  the  Marietta 
Company  as  one  favoring  such  a  connection.1  Perhaps 
the  British  officer  desired  to  show  the  importance  of  his 
work  and  magnified  some  of  the  expressions  he  heard  on 
his  tour;  at  any  rate,  we  have  no  direct  evidence  that 
any  such  connection  was  actually  established.  It  is  pos 
sible  that  British  goods  intended  primarily  for  the  Indian 
trade  may  have  ultimately  reached  these  new  settlements 
on  the  Ohio.  We  have  evidence  that  Canadian  traders 
wished  this,  but  no  indications  that  their  wishes  were 
largely  realized.  Of  more  immediate  danger,  however, 
was  the  complicated  plan  of  Citizen  Gent  in  1793,  for 
the  invasion  of  Louisiana  and  the  Floridas  from  the 
Ohio  valley.2  This  danger  was  more  immediate  because 
of  the  fact  that  French  emissaries  were  all  through  the 
region,  while  on  the  northern  bank  of  the  Ohio  a  colony 
of  disgusted  Frenchmen  afforded  a  nucleus  for  such  a 
movement.  This  same  restive  spirit  of  filibustering  in 
trigue  continued  during  the  following  decade.  The 
Blount  conspiracy  awakened  some  echoes  along  the  Ohio 
but  attracted  no  tangible  assistance.  The  various  ques 
tions  associated  with  the  transfer  of  Louisiana  aroused 
in  turn  the  resentment  or  elation  of  the  growing  com 
munities  now  springing  up  on  its  banks.  The  famous 
Burr  conspiracy  touched  the  borders  of  the  same  terri 
tory,  stirred  up  some  officials  to  unwonted  activity,  and 

1Brymner,  Report  of  the  Canadian  Archives  for  i8go,  p.  99  ff. 
2 The  details  of  this  are  attractively  sketched  by  Turner  in  the 
Am.  Hist.  Review,  X.  p.  249  ff. 

221 


involved  others,  especially  Senator  John  Smith  of  Ohio, 
in  political  ruin. 

This  catalogue  of  events  will  show  that  the  North 
west  had  its  general  share  in  the  diplomatic  intrigue 
which  existed  in  the  Mississippi  valley  till  after  1815.  The 
formal  treaty  of  1783  should  have  secured  the  peace  and 
safety  of  the  Northwest  Territory;  instead  it  merely  re 
opened  the  old  diplomatic  controversy  of  the  days  of 
Louis  XV.,  with  the  ever  present  Indian  as  its  most  im 
portant  factor.  It  is  true  that  the  question  now  had  a 
new  setting.  The  mother  nation,  England,  was  now 
arrayed  against  her  recently  freed  daughter.  The  former 
possessed  a  series  of  posts  along  the  Great  Lakes,  most 
of  them  within  limits  that  had  been  acknowledged  to 
belong  to  the  United  States.  The  latter  was  represented 
by  the  flourishing  colony  of  Kentucky,  the  western  ex 
tension  of  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  proper,  and  within 
five  years  had  begun  to  fringe  with  settlements  the 
northern  bank  of  the  Ohio.  Between  these  straggling 
outposts  lay  the  Red  Men,  divided  into  two  general 
groups — the  Six  Nations,  largely  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
Northwest  Territory  but  extending  into  its  northeastern 
portion,  and  the  western  Algonquin  tribes.  Both  of 
these  groups  were  largely  under  British  influence,  but 
while  the  Iroquois  were  inclined  to  neutrality  the  West 
ern  Indians  were  especially  hostile  to  the  Americans 
whose  widening  frontier  threatened  the  early  absorption 
of  the  greater  part  of  their  hunting  grounds.  Beyond 
the  Mississippi,  below  the  mouth  of  the  Missouri  were 
the  weak  outposts  of  impotent  Spain,  fearing  for  her 
great  highway  to  the  Mexican  mines,  and  ready,  as  the 
history  of  the  immediate  past  showed,  to  strike  a  covert 
blow  at  Great  Britain  or  the  United  States,  could  she 
by  so  acting  check  the  advance  of  these  dreaded  neigh 
bors.  In  addition  there  existed  the  distinct  menace  that 
France  might  ally  her  robust  force  with  Spain  in  another 

222 


attempt  to  dominate  the  Mississippi  valley.  These  were 
the  various  elements  in  the  situation  during  a  decade  and 
a  half  after  1783,  yet  the  essential  factors  were  the  pres 
ence  of  the  Indian  and  the  consequent  economic  interest 
of  Great  Britain  in  the  fur  trade.  These  furnished  the 
motives  for  retaining  the  posts  thirteen  years;  for  insist 
ing  upon  commercial  privileges  with  Indians  within  the 
limits  of  the  United  States,  and  for  claiming  the  right  to 
navigate  the  Mississippi  long  after  her  own  explorers  had 
shown  that  England  was  not  entitled  to  that  privilege. 
In  a  negative  way  the  fear  of  the  savages  covertly  sup 
ported  by  British  policy,  acted  as  a  check  upon  American 
settlements  beyond  the  immediate  banks  of  the  Ohio 
and  gave  currency  to  the  natural  resentment  against 
Great  Britain. 

The  three  important  diplomatic  questions  between 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  that  involved  the 
Northwest  Territory  are;  first,  the  retention  of  the  mili 
tary  posts  along  the  southern  border  of  the  Great  Lakes; 
second,  the  Indian  trade  within  the  limits  of  the  United 
States;  and  third,  the  gap  in  the  boundary  line  in  the 
extreme  northwest  which  involved  the  British  right 
to  navigate  the  Mississippi  and  the  later  northern  bound 
ary  of  the  Louisiana  purchase.  We  will  trace  each  of 
these  in  turn  until  its  final  settlement. 

The  retention  of  the  frontier  posts  along  our  north 
ern  border  constituted  one  of  the  most  weighty  charges 
of  the  Americans  against  the  British  during  this  critical 
period.  The  motive  alleged  by  the  British  government, 
some  two  years  after  the  ratification  of  the  treaty,  for 
the  failure  to  deliver  these  posts  was  the  fact  that  most 
of  the  states  of  the  American  union  had  passed  laws  inter 
fering  with  loyalists  and  with  the  collection  of  British 
debts.  This  has  been  very  conclusively  shown  by  Pro 
fessor  McLaughlin1  to  have  been  an  afterthought.  The 

1  Report  of  the  Am.  Hist.  Ass'n  for  1894,  p.  413  ff. 
223 


real  motive  was  to  secure  the  fur  trade  on  the  American 
side  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  for  thirteen  years  Great 
Britain  was  successful,  but  at  a  fearful  future  cost  of 
of  future  distrust  and  national  aversion  on  the  part  of 
the  United  States. 

But  more  immediate  results  followed  the  retention  of 
these  posts.  British  officials  must  exercise  a  civil  juris 
diction  over  contiguous  settlements;  they  must  provision 
and  arm  the  Indians  in  order  to  secure  furs  from  them, 
and  this  regalement  meant  at  least  indirect  encourage 
ment  of  their  hostilities  against  the  Americans,  if  nothing 
worse.  Before  1788  the  Americans  had  made  treaties 
with  certain  Indian  tribes  by  which  they  obtained  the 
grants  of  land  occupied  by  the  settlements  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Muskingum  and  Scioto  and  in  the  Miami  dis 
tricts.1  Other  Indians  claimed  that  these  cessions  were 
illegal  because  made  by  a  minority  of  the  contracting 
tribe  or  obtained  through  fraud;  and  the  British  agents 
openly  or  tacitly  supported  them  in  resisting  the  validity 
of  these  grants.  During  the  conference  between  the 
representatives  of  the  United  States  and  these  Indians, 
which  resulted  in  these  treaties,  and  in  others  held  before 
1795,  British  representatives  assisted,  sometimes  through 
direct  American  invitation,  and  at  other  times  because 
the  Indians  refused  to  attend  unless  they  were  also  pres 
ent.  While  it  is  probable  that  for  the  most  part  they 
exercised  a  restraining  influence  upon  the  savages,  their 
very  presence  did  much  to  neutralize  their  spoken  coun 
sel.  Their  course  immediately  before  Wayne's  campaign 
in  1794,  however,  seems  to  have  been  of  a  more  hostile 
character.  By  the  indiscreet  words  of  Lord  Dorchester 
and  the  froward  course  of  Lieutenant  Governor  Simcoe 
in  reoccupying  a  post  on  the  Maumee,  they  did  much  to 
encourage  the  Indians  in  hostilities  against  the  Ameri 
cans,  and  led  to  later  heated  diplomatic  correspondence 

1The  treaties  are  given  in  Am.  State  Papers,  Indian  Affairs,  I. 
224 


at  Philadelphia  and  in  London.  Hammond,  the  British 
minister  and  Randolph  the  American  Secretary  of  State 
were  not  in  a  position  to  obtain  much  satisfaction  from 
their  mutual  charges  for  they  depended  upon  biased 
reports  from  Dorchester  or  from  Wayne.  The  general 
purport  of  this  correspondence  in  1794  was,  as  the  Ameri 
cans  claimed,  that  England  by  taking  a  new  position  on 
the  Maumee  had  violated  the  status  quo  which  they 
wished  to  be  observed  during  Jay's  negotiation,  while 
the  English  claimed  that  the  advance  from  the  Ohio  of 
a  hostile  force  under  Wayne,  was  likewise  a  violation  of 
the  same  status  and  their  own  movement  was  simply  the 
reoccupation  of  a  post  which  had  formerly  been  under 
British  control.  Fortunately  a  more  accommodating 
spirit  ruled  at  London,  by  which  Jay  and  Grenville  were 
enabled  to  come  to  a  conclusion  which  led  to  the  aban 
donment  of  the  forts  by  the  British. 1  Thus  a  prolific 
cause  of  misunderstanding  and  confusion  was  removed 
from  the  Northwest.  It  was  now  possible  for  the  Ameri 
can  authorities  to  deal  directly  with  the  Indians,  who, 
no  longer  aided  by  the  moral  (or  perhaps  immoral)  sup 
port  of  the  British,  and  disheartened  by  Wayne's  victory 
at  Fallen  Timbers,  finally  signed  in  1795,  the  Treaty  of 
Greenville,  which  brought  a  lull  in  Indian  hostilities  in 
the  Northwest. 

Every  treaty  must  in  a  measure  be  the  result  of  com 
promise  and  this  is  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Jay's  cele 
brated  convention  by  the  clause  regulating  Indian  Trade. 
In  withdrawing  her  garrisons  from  our  territory  Great 
Britain  did  indeed  render  partial  justice,  but  the  conces 
sion  was  only  obtained  by  our  representative's  yielding 
something  of  national  dignity  on  this  other  important 
question.  Lord  Grenville  at  first  suggested  that  British 
traders  should  have  free  access  to  our  Indians,  and  that 

1For  the  diplomatic  correspondence  dealing  with  this  subject 
consult  Am.  State  Papers,  Foreign  Relations,  I. 

225 


the  latter  should  communicate  freely  with  the  British 
posts  in  Canada,  without  even  the  payment  of  a  transit 
duty.  This  derogation  of  sovereign  rights  and  waiving 
of  revenue  was  too  great  a  concession  and  the  conferees 
finally  agreed  that  such  Indian  trade  should  be  open  to 
the  subjects  of  both  countries  upon  the  payment  at  des 
ignated  ports  of  entry  of  duties  upon  such  articles  as 
remained  permanently  within  the  foreign  territory;  but 
goods  in  transit  were  not  to  pay  even  this  nominal 
charge.  In  fact,  a  decade  later,  Lieutenant  Pike  found 
that  the  greater  part  of  the  goods  introduced  into  the 
Lake  Superior  region  were  paying  no  duties  whatever.1 

It  is  obvious  that  all  the  advantages  of  this  arrange 
ment  rested  with  the  British  traders.  For  thirteen  years 
Great  Britain  had  controlled  the  available  channels  of 
this  trade,  by  retaining  the  posts  on  the  Lakes,  and  now 
the  influence  of  her  merchants  was  practically  supreme 
in  the  greater  part  of  the  Northwest,  and  this  was 
equally  true  of  the  region  above  the  Missouri,  which  was 
soon  to  pass  into  our  hands.  One  result  of  this  condition 
of  affairs  was  the  ease  with  which  Great  Britain  attracted 
Indian  support  during  the  War  of  1812,  and  gained  con 
trol  of  the  greater  part  of  the  present  states  of  Michigan 
and  Wisconsin.  It  was  not  till  1816  that  British  fur 
traders,  except  when  serving  as  subordinates  in  American 
companies,  were  excluded  from  this  commerce.  Two 
years  later  in  the  Convention  of  London,  Mr.  Rush  and 
Mr.  Gallatin  succeeded  in  avoiding  a  renewal  of  the  privi 
lege  of  1794. 2  Thus  legal  enactment  and  formal  treaty 
finally  came  to  the  support  of  American  sovereignty  in 
this  respect,  but  the  annals  of  Governor  Cass's  adminis 
tration  of  Michigan  territory  show  that  the  British  fur 
trade  was  still  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  of  the  American  offi- 


1  Cf.  Coues,   The  Journals  of  Zebulon  Montgomery  Pike,  I.,  p. 
265  if.   " 

*Am.  State  Papers,  For.  Rel.  IV.,  p.  376  ff. 

226 


cials  as  late  as  the  fourth  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century.1 

A  third  phase  of  the  Northwestern  diplomacy  during 
this  period  is  concerned  with  the  gap  in  the  boundary 
between  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  and  the  Mississippi.  At 
first  view  it  would  seem  that  this  question  is  less  con 
nected  with  the  ever-present  Indian  problem  than  the 
others  already  considered,  but  this  is  more  apparent  than 
real.  In  the  ensuing  discussions  upon  this  omission  in 
the  boundary,  the  British  representatives,  contrary  to 
American  claim  and  the  obvious  intention  of  the  second 
and  eighth  articles  of  the  Treaty  of  1783,  claimed  that 
the  subject  was  closely  interwoven  with  that  of  the  nav 
igation  of  the  Mississippi.2  This  latter  privilege  they 
(the  British)  valued  chiefly  because  of  the  facility  it 
afforded  for  carrying  on  their  fur  trade,  so  this  subject, 
as  the  others,  is  one  connected  with  the  ever  recurrent 
Indian  problem. 

Hardly  was  the  purport  of  the  Preliminary  Treaty  of 
November  1782  known  in  Canada  before  members  of  the 
recently  formed  Northwest  Fur  Company  were  petition 
ing  the  Canadian  officials  to  assist  them  in  shutting  out 
possible  American  rivals  from  the  Superior  region  and 
beyond.  They  hoped  that  the  line  of  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods  would  not  be  run  as  planned,  for  they  feared  that 
this  would  close  their  route  to  the  posts  beyond  Lake 
Superior.  They  spoke  of  a  plan  to  explore  another 
water  route  wholly  within  the  British  lines  and  asked  for 
a  monopoly  of  such  line,  if  found,  for  a  period  of  seven 
years.3  Although  Governor  Haldimand  could  not  give 
them  the  monopoly  they  asked  for,  he  was  able  to  assure 
them  that  the  forts  on  the  lakes  would  not  be  delivered 
to  the  Americans  at  present  and  that  American  commis- 


1McLaughlin,  Lewis  Cass,  p.  112  if. 

2 Am.  State  Papers,  For.  Rel.,  I.,  p.  491  ff. 

3Brymner,  Report  of  the  Canadian  Archives  for  1890,  p.  48  ff. 

227 


sioners  would  not  soon  be  given  an  opportunity  to  ex 
amine  British  fur  preserves,  under  pretext  of  determining 
the  course  of  an  uncertain  boundary.  The  further 
development  of  this  phase  of  the  question  has  already 
been  discussed  in  considering  the  questions  of  the  posts 
and  of  Indian  trade. 

Scarcely  was  the  ink  dry  upon  the  copy  of  Mitchell's 
map  where  the  British  and  American  commissioners  had 
traced  with  heavy  line  the  proposed  boundary  before  the 
explorations  of  Mackenzie  and  the  observations  of  Thomp 
son  showed  that  it  was  an  impossible  limit.1  The  Miss 
issippi  did  not  extend  northward  to  the  latitude  of  the 
Lake  of  the  Woods,  so  a  due  west  line  from  the  latter 
would  not  strike  it.  Accordingly,  it  formed  one  part  of 
Jay's  mission  to  settle  the  matter  of  the  extreme  north 
western  boundary. 

Early  in  his  correspondence  with  Lord  Grenville, 
the  Englishman  proposed  to  rectify  the  mistake  by  draw 
ing  a  line  from  the  western  end  of  Lake  Superior  to  the 
eastern  branch  of  the  Mississippi,  or  else  one  due  north 
from  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Croix  till  it  should  strike  a  line 
running  from  Lake  Superior  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods. 
Jay  objected  to  these  propositions  because  they  required 
a  cession  of  territory  by  the  United  States,  and  also  im 
plied  that  the  British  right  to  navigate  the  river  rested 
upon  the  fact  that  the  boundary  extended  to  the  Missis 
sippi  when  his  understanding  of  the  negotiations  in  1782 — 
and  he  was  one  of  the  commissioners — was  that  the 
navigation  was  an  after-thought  inserted  because  of  the 
British  right  by  virtue  of  the  treaty  of  1763.  Grenville 
believed  that  Great  Britain  could  insist  upon  a  direct 
line  to  the  Mississippi  with  as  much  justice  as  the  Amer 
icans  upon  one  due  west  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods; 
nevertheless  he  agreed  to  Jay's  proposition  for  a  joint 
survey  of  the  Mississippi  river  from  a  point  a  degree  be- 


lAm.  State  Papers,  For.  Aff.,  I.,  p.  473  ff. 

228 


low  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony  to  its  source.     This  joint 
survey  was  never  made.  1 

The  subject  of  this  limit  became  important  again  in 
1802,  when  Madison  forwarded  to  Rufus  King,  our  minis 
ter  at  St.  James,  instructions  relating  to  the  ratification 
of  this  as  well  as  of  other  points  in  our  northern  bound 
ary.  Mr.  King  was  authorized  to  accept  a  line  running 
from  the  source  of  the  Mississippi  nearest  the  Lake  of 
the  Woods,  thence  following  the  shore  of  the  latter  till 
it  met  the  line  of  1783.  Madison  thoroughly  distrusted 
Great  Britain  and  believed  that  that  power  wished  to 
extend  her  pretentions  to  include  the  territory  between 
the  Mississippi  and  Missouri.2  It  was  then  supposed 
that  Spain  had  transferred  this  region  to  France,  so 
about  the  same  time  Livingston  at  Paris  also  advised 
King  to  agitate  the  subject  of  the  gap  in  our  boundaries, 
but  to  come  to  no  agreement  in  the  matter-  Meanwhile, 
he,  Livingston,  would  use  the  fact  that  King  was  nego 
tiating  with  England  as  a  sort  of  club  to  force  France  to 
cede  to  the  United  States  the  Louisiana  territory  above 
the  Arkansas.3  Thus  the  minor  omission  of  the  Treaty 
of  1783  had  expanded  in  Livingston's  mind  till  it  in 
cluded  a  large  share  of  the  Mississippi  valley;  but  his 
fanciful  suggestion  had  no  direct  bearing  upon  the  solu 
tion  of  the  question. 

In  the  instructions  and  correspondence  of  this  year 
the  American  representatives  seem  to  abandon  Jay's 
position  regarding  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi. 
Mr.  King's  convention  finally  adopted  the  liberal  sugges 
tion  of  Madison,  though  in  reverse  order,  and  began  the 
line  at  the  northwest  corner  of  the  Lake  of  the  Woods, 
thence  drawing  it  in  the  most  direct  way  to  the  Missis 
sippi 


p.  497. 
i  p.  585. 

3  State  Papers  and  Correspondence  Bearing  upon  the  Purchase 
of  the  Territory  of  Louisiana,  pp.  20-50. 

229 


Within  three  days  after  signing  this  convention, 
King  had  to  report  to  Lord  Hawkesbury  an  event  that 
had  an  important  bearing  upon  it.  This  was  the  news  of 
the  cession  of  Louisiana  by  France  to  the  United  States. 
The  Louisiana  convention  bore  a  date  twelve  days  pre 
vious  to  that  negotiated  by  King,  and  when  the  two 
papers  arrived  on  the  western  shore  of  the  Atlantic  it 
was  questionable  whether  the  former  did  not  nullify  the 
part  of  the  latter  relating  to  the  northern  boundary. 
The  committee  of  the  Senate  to  whom  this  matter  was 
referred  took  this  view  and  reported  in  favor  of  ratify 
ing  Mr  King's  convention  with  the  exception  of  the 
Fifth  Article  relating  to  that  limit.  *  Senator  Pickering 
of  Massachusetts  naturally  sided  with  his  friend,  King, 
and  opposed  the  report  of  the  Committee,  rendered  by  its 
Chairman,  the  son  of  his  enemy,  John  Adams.  More 
over  his  zeal  led  him  into  a  controversy  with  Jefferson 
over  the  northern  boundary  of  Louisiana  and  he  charged 
the  President  with  a  policy  of  duplicity  in  claiming  more 
territory  in  the  north  than  France  had  previously  done. 2 
The  wishes  of  the  President  prevailed  over  his  lukewarm 
secretary,  and  the  policy  of  Adams  appealed  to  the  Sen 
ate.  Thus  the  doubtful  article  failed  of  ratification  and 
in  view  of  the  danger  of  a  possible  curtailment  of  the 
Louisiana  Purchase  in  this  region,  it  was  well  that  it  did. 

In  the  spring  of  1805,  at  Madrid,  Monroe  and 
Charles  Pinckney  stated  that  the  United  States  claimed 
the  49th  parallel  as  the  northern  boundary  of  Louisiana. 
In  the  course  of  the  same  year  General  Wilkinson  sent 
Lieutenant  Z.  M.  Pike  to  explore  the  sources  of  the 
Mississippi  and  to  assert  American  sovereignty  in  the 
vicinity  against  the  encroachments  of  British  fur  traders. 
Pike  discovered  that  the  latter  were  working  on  the  as- 


lAm.  State  Papers,  For.  Rel.,  II.;  J.  Q.  Adams,  Memoirs,  I., 
267  ff. 

*SeeJe/erson  Papers  (Mss.),  2nd  Series,  Vol.  66,  No.  36. 

230 


sumption  that  the  northwestern  gap  was  to  be  closed  by 
a  line  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  to  the  source  of  the 
Mississippi,  at  which  point  the  Louisiana  boundary  was 
to  begin.  Had  Mr.  King's  convention  been  ratified  this 
assumption  on  their  part  might  have  been  maintained 
with  the  consequent  loss  by  the  United  States  of  the 
upper  part  of  the  Red  River  Valley  and  a  considerable 
fraction  of  Louisiana.1 

In  1806  Monroe  and  William  Pinckney  again  took  up 
the  subject,  with  a  view  of  continuing  the  line  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  in  their  convention  were  success 
ful  in  establishing  the  American  contention  to  the  line 
of  the  49th  parallel  west  of  the  Lake  of  the  Woods. 
The  other  features  of  the  convention  were,  however,  so 
unsatisfactory  that  Jefferson  did  not  even  submit  their 
work  to  the  Senate  for  its  ratification.  Thus  the  gap 
in  the  boundaries,  with  the  accompanying  question  of 
Mississippi  navigation  and  Louisiana  boundary,  remained 
unsettled  when  the  War  of  1812  broke  out. 

The  city  of  Ghent  in  the  latter  part  of  1814  became 
the  next  scene  for  discussing  these  important  points — the 
Northwestern  boundary  and  the  navigation  of  the  Missis 
sippi.  At  first  the  British  commissioners  not  only  reas- 
sumed  the  position  of  their  government  before  1807,  but 
even  proposed  that  this  line  should  be  drawn  from  Lake 
Superior  directly  to  the  source  of  the  Mississippi.  Their 
subjects  were  also  to  have  free  access  to  that  river,  to 
gether  with  the  right  of  free  navigation  to  its  mouth. 
This  proposition  especially  aroused  the  ire  of  Henry 
Clay,  who,  as  the  representative  of  the  West  was  partic 
ularly  impressed  with  the  growing  importance  of  that 
river  in  its  development.  Unfortunately,  he  found  his 
chief  opponent  not  on  the  opposing  commission  but 
among  his  own  colleagues  in  the  person  of  John  Quincy 
Adams.  The  father  of  the  latter  had  secured  in  1783, 

lCoues,Journa/s  of  J.  M.  Pike,  I.,  265. 
231 


the  right  to  engage  in  the  fisheries  of  the  Newfoundland 
coast,  and  now  the  son  was  unwilling  to  abandon  his 
filial  obligation  to  preserve  what  his  father  had  won,  or 
to  fail  in  the  support  of  such  a  typical  New  England  in 
dustry  as  the  cod  fishery.  For  a  time  the  question  of 
separating  these  two  questions — of  the  navigation  and 
the  fisheries — threatened  to  disrupt  the  American  con 
tingent  and  it  needed  all  the  tact  of  Gallatin  to  avoid 
such  a  result.  Finally  the  British  commissioners  pro 
posed  to  defer  both  questions  for  future  negotiation,  and 
although  Clay  stated  openly  that  it  meant  a  -  -  bad 
treaty,  while  Adams  recorded  his  impressions  in  his  diary, 
they  both  signed  the  convention.1  Three  years  later 
Adams,  as  Secretary  of  State,  sent  to  Albert  Gallatin 
and  Richard  Rush  the  instructions  to  guide  them  in  the 
negotiation  which  finally  settled  the  question.  By  the 
terms  of  the  Convention  of  London,  October  20th,  1818, 
the  northern  boundary  of  the  United  States  from  the 
Lake  of  the  Woods  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  was  to  be 
the  49th  parallel,  while  the  rights  to  navigate  the  Missis 
sippi  and  to  engage  in  Indian  trade  within  the  limits  of 
the  United  States  was  yielded  by  Great  Britain.2  In 
view  of  the  future  peace  of  mind  of  the  then  Secretary 
of  State,  one  is  pleased  to  observe  that  the  fisheries  also 
were  not  neglected  in  this  same  convention.  Thus  a 
minor  error  in  limits  which  had  expanded  into  a  bound 
ary  and  commercial  question  of  continental  magnitude 
was  happily  corrected  to  the  manifest  advantage  of  both 
nations. 

It  remains  to  mention  briefly,  as  the  final  word  in 
the  Indian  diplomacy  of  the  Old  Northwest,  certain  fea 
tures  connected  with  the  War  of  1812.  The  broadside 


xThe  public  correspondence  is  given  in  Am.  State  Papers,  For. 
ReL,  III;  for  details  relating  to  the  American  negotiators  see  H. 
Adams,  Life  and  Writings  of  Albert  Gallatin',  and  J.  Q.  Adams, 
Memoirs,  III. 

2 Am.  State  Papers,  For.  Re  1.,  IV.,  395  ff. 


232 


fired  into  the  "Chesapeake"  by  the  ' 'Leopard"  off  the 
capes  of  Virginia,  had  aroused  to  unwelcome  activity  the 
Canadian  officials  and  they  began  to  prepare  for  expected 
hostilities  from  the  American  side.  This  preparation 
included  invoking  the  customary  Indian  assistance  and 
among  the  possible  Indian  allies  we  find  the  significant 
names  of  Tecumseh  and  "The  Prophet."  Meanwhile, 
in  Michigan  Governor  Hull,  and  in  Indiana  Governor 
Harrison,  were  attempting  to  quiet  the  minds  of  the 
Indians  and  to  render  them  neutral  in  the  expected  crisis. 
Harrison  had  succeeded,  in  spite  of  the  repeated  opposi 
tion  of  the  British  traders,  and  even  government  officials, 
in  obtaining  several  valuable  Indian  cessions  in  what  is 
now  Indiana  and  Illinois. *  On  the  other  side  the  British 
authorities  were  claiming  that  they  had  used  every  effort 
to  restrain  the  Indians  and  had  even  withheld  from  them 
means  of  carrying  on  hostilities.  We  find  some  Ameri 
can  support  of  this  claim  in  the  statement  of  Rufus  Put 
nam  to  Timothy  Pickering  that  Harrison  purposely 
started  the  difficulty  with  the  Indians  to  lend  color  to 
the  charge  of  the  American  government  that  they  were 
stirred  up  by  the  British.'2  This  statement  cannot  be 
accepted,  however,  till  \ve  know  more  of  the  personal 
motive  that  dictated  this  letter.  In  spite  of  charges  and 
countercharges,  or  possibly  as  a  direct  result  of  them,  the 
month  of  November  1811  beheld  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tippecanoe  the  opening  event  of  the  War  of  1812,  in  the 
Northwest  and  as  usual  the  Indian  was  the  most  impor 
tant  factor. 

During  the  first  few  months  of  open  hostilities  the 
advantages    of  the  Indian   alliance   rested  wholly  with 


*For  a  convenient  summary  of  Harrison's  Indian  Treaties  see 
the  monograph  by  Webster  and  Harrison"1  s  Career  as  Governor  of 
Indiana  Territory,  in  Indiana  Historical  Society  Publications,  Vol. 
IV.,  No.  3. 

2  Calendar  of  Pickering  Papers,  (Publications  of  the  Mass.  Hist. 
Society,  Series  ill. 

233 


Great  Britain.  The  presence  of  the  savages  materially 
hastened  the  surrender  of  Detroit,  the  abandonment  of 
Fort  Dearborn  and  its  attendant  massacre,  the  capture 
of  Fort  McKay,  within  the  present  state  of  Wisconsin, 
the  Raisen  River  Massacre,  and  the  extension  of  hostili 
ties  towards  the  Ohio.  With  Perry's  victory  on  Lake 
Erie  and  Harrison's  success  on  the  Thames,  there  came 
a  turn,  however,  and  on  July  16th,  1814,  there  occurred 
the  signing  of  a  second  Treaty  of  Greenville  by  which 
the  majority  of  the  Indians  within  the  Northwest  ac 
cepted  an  American  alliance  and  agreed  to  take  up  the 
hatchet  against  their  former  companions  in  arms.1 
While  this  fact  is  not  greatly  to  the  credit  of  the  Ameri 
can  government,  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  policy  of  Jeffer 
son  as  outlined  in  the  instructions  of  the  War  Depart 
ment  to  the  Governors  and  Indian  agents  of  Louisiana, 
and  of  Jackson  in  New  Orleans,  who  was  enlisting  the 
same  sort  of  support  among  the  savages  along  the  Red 
River.2  Moreover  the  unofficial  report  of  Harrison's 
action  influenced  materially  the  discussion  at  Ghent  con 
cerning  Indian  relations. 

It  is  at  Ghent  that  we  meet  with  the  last  diplomatic 
attempt  to  make  of  the  Old  Northwest  an  Indian  reser 
vation.  At  the  first  meeting  of  the  commissioners  on 
August  8th,  18^4,  Mr.  Ghoulbourn  in  behalf  of  his  British 
colleagues  stated  that  a  sine  qua  non  of  the  negotiations 
would  be  the  inclusion  of  the  Indians  in  the  proposed 
treaty.  A  little  later  he  and  his  commissioners  showed 
what  this  proposed  inclusion  meant.  A  certain  part  of 
the  territory  between  the  Lakes  and  the  Ohio  was  to  be 
made  into  an  Indian  buffet  state,  with  definite  bounds, 
under  the  joint  guarantee  of  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain.  The  more  radical  London  papers  had 


.  State  Papers,  Ind.  Affairs,  Vol.  II.,  p.  826  ff. 
2 'Jefferson  Papers,  Series  I.,  Vol.  10;  also    Indian   Office,  Letter 
Book  B.  (Mss.  Bureau  of  Indian  Affairs.) 

234 


demanded  that  the  Ohio  should  form  this  line  and  that 
Great  Britain  should  resume  sovereignty  over  both  sides 
of  the  Lakes.  The  commissioners  stated,  however, 
that  they  would  accept  the  line  of  the  Treaty  of  Green 
ville,  or  even  some  modification  of  it.  The  hundred 
thousand  or  more  white  inhabitants  beyond  this  line 
would,  in  the  language  of  the  British  commissioners, 
have  to  shift  for  themselves.  It  did  not  take  the  Ameri 
can  commissioners  long  to  reject  the  proposition,  to  keep 
this  territory  an  Indian  desert,  or  the  accompanying  pro 
posal  that  the  Americans  must  forbear  to  arm  vessels  on 
the  Lakes  or  erect  fortifications  on  its  shores,  and  the 
British  commissioners  speedily  received  instructions  to 
abandon  them  after  Harrison's  Treaty  at  Greenville.1 
The  proposal  that  each  side  should  retain  its  conquests 
was  equally  rejected  and  in  this  the  Americans  had  the 
support  of  no  less  a  character  than  the  great  Wellington 
himself.  Other  proposals  regarding  Indian  trade,  navi 
gation  of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  unadjusted  boundary 
were  equally  unacceptable  to  both  groups  of  commis 
sioners,  so  the  treaty  finally  provided  for  a  mere  suspen 
sion  of  hostilities.  In  the  near  future,  as  we  have  al 
ready  seen,  these  questions  were  settled  in  keeping  with 
the  best  interests  of  the  Northwest. 

In  this  summary  of  certain  diplomatic  questions  af 
fecting  the  Northwest,  two  general  tendencies  are  appar 
ent.  The  one  is  a  desire  on  the  part  of  certain  govern 
ing  factors  to  keep  the  region  a  wilderness  for  the  pur 
pose  of  ease  in  control  and  for  the  development  of  the 
Indian  fur  trade, — the  other  to  open  the  country  to  civil 
ization  as  rapidly  as  circumstances  and  pioneer  energy 
should  warrant.  It  is  with  sincere  pride  that  one  records 
the  fact  that  despite  a  few  bungling  attempts  the  efforts 
of  the  American  government  from  the  first  were  in  keep 
ing  with  the  second  of  these  tendencies,  and  that  in  the 
end  their  efforts  prevailed. 

1  Adams,  Memoirs,  III.,  p.  43. 

235 
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